


Aches

by Zoya113



Category: The Guy Who Didn't Like Musicals - Team StarKid
Genre: Chronic Pain, F/M, Fluff, I’ve written like 20 identical fics to this oops, Nora and zoey are homies, TW: painkillers/drug mentions, does this count as a sick fic, hurt and comfort I think?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-30
Updated: 2020-10-30
Packaged: 2021-03-08 17:36:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,866
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27280570
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zoya113/pseuds/Zoya113
Summary: Ever since the helicopter crash, Emma’s leg has always tended to hurt. At least Paul has been there to help
Relationships: Emma Perkins/ Paul Matthews
Comments: 6
Kudos: 28





	Aches

**Author's Note:**

> Whaat. Me writing main character content and projecting onto emma,, what is this,, 2019? Anyways I wrote this in a very pained stupor lmao I apologise if it doesn’t make as much sense as I thought

The pain is either there or it isn’t, and Emma never had any say in the matter. 

On days when Emma woke up with a bad leg that was it. Ice packs barely numbed the pain and sometimes heat packs made it worse. 

Sometimes painkillers could make it tolerable, but unless she wanted to zombie-fy herself with the top shelf stuff that was just how the day was going to go for her. 

Waking up on a day when work starts at six AM, and knowing she was going to have to walk there just to stand all day really made her consider some bad things.

Technically she wouldn’t have to go to work if she happened to get run over on the way there, right?

No. She coughed and cleared her throat. That was very inappropriate, and she apologised to Jane just for the thought. 

But man. Shit. Sometimes it was just bad. 

“Hey, not every day you get pierced by a fucking rebar.” When she was in rehabilitation she knew how long it would take for the bone to get back to normal, she knew it’d never be the same again or ever as strong. She was a biologist herself and she knew it, she knew how fucked it would be. Hell, the bar had gone right through the bone. But god! None of the doctors even mentioned she was gonna be cursed with nerve pain for the rest of her stupid life.

Paul was still fast asleep, his chest rising and falling peacefully as small mumbles slipped from his mouth drowsily. 

He didn’t have nerve pain, was all Emma could think. He was totally fine, she noted with bitter jealousy as she collected her uniform.

It wasn’t his fault though, so she simply envied the Emma twelve hours ago who did not have a killer case of nerve pain.

She buttoned up her work blouse as she sat at the end of their bed, swinging her bad leg to see if she could shake it out, and tapping it furiously when she realised she couldn’t.

She bit down on the inside of her lip hard, forgetting to take a breath as she stood up to pull on her work shorts. “Shit!” She cursed as she tried to stand on her bad leg, dropping back down onto the mattress before it had a chance to ache too much. 

Time to get dressed the good old fashioned way, she supposed, pulling her legs through their holes and shuffling the hem up her sides until she would be able to stand on both legs to button them up.

“Ah shit. Fucking shit.” The first of many challenges - getting dressed - and her day was already headed south.

Walking didn’t always help even out the pain. Sometimes it made it worse, and when the searing pain really clawed at her muscles she just wanted to burst out crying in the middle of the street.

She didn’t though, she couldn’t, she wouldn’t really. But if it was going to hurt that much she felt entitled to a little outburst.

She glanced down at her phone, the pale glow glaring into her eyes. It was only quarter to seven, the sun hadn’t risen properly. 

On her phone her schedule was a simple green block of 8-5, but in her head her schedule was stretching out into a monstrous labyrinth of tasks.

Walk to work, prepare the cafe by setting up the tables and preparing the chairs outside, standing for five hours, walk down the street to buy lunch, walk back, busing tables for another four hours, closing, walking back home. 

She stumbled, and not because of the leg pain for a change. It just seems unattainable, but somehow she was going to get through it because she had absolutely no choice but. 

Time kept marching forward, dragging her with it.

And now her head was hurting too. The sun was barely above the horizon and she already wanted to give up on the day but unfortunately there was no way to just call it quits on being a conscious, feeling human being for a couple of hours when she was supposed to be at work.

“Morning,” Zoey greeted from where she was already preparing the pastries for the day. “Can you do tables?” 

Emma nodded her foggy head instead of arguing, because somehow arguing would take more effort than just getting it over with at this rate. She wished Zoey had already started that though.

By nine, she had come to terms with it after a cup of espresso. It was there and it was going to be all day, but she could at least keep her mouth shut about it.

“It’s the sciatic nerve,” she stated to herself as she lifted her bad leg up carefully, resting her knee on the part of the counter that customers couldn’t see. “At least I can’t forget that.” On the bright side, it was good for biology revision she thought as she traced out the pattern of the nerve down her thigh.

She clasped her fingers around the back of her leg to lift it up manually, the stretch that was best for it required her to be sitting down, and she wasn’t on break for another three hours and forty three minutes, even if she accounted for the fact the work clock was two minutes slow. 

“It looks funny with you do that,” Zoey said, copying her and placing her own knee up against the employees side of the bench. “Is your leg being a bitch?” She asked, collecting a cup of coffee Emma had just made.

Emma nodded. “A bastard,” she grimaced. It wasn’t even funny. “Work is so long,” she couldn’t help but note. If she was lucky it might dull by midday, but even then that was four hours away. 

“I’m sorry, Em, maybe talk to Nora?” Zoey frowned, swiftly carrying away the coffee order. It wasn’t much sympathy but the both of them knew there wasn’t really anything Zoey could do. 

The bell chiming made her twitch, gripping at her apron as she tried to muster up her customer service voice, swinging her head up only to see it was Paul. 

She actually forgot she was expecting him, but not even as he walked in through the door did the pain quiet down. 

“Hi!” She greeted him, breathless. Him being there felt like she had an excuse to cry, that she would be safe to, but she still didn’t. 

“Hi, black coffee?” He laughed awkwardly as he prompted her, usually she jumped straight to it the second he came through the door but she needed a second to prepare herself for that today.

“My leg hurts,” she stated instead, reaching to the pitcher and banging it against the table in a facade of productivity. There wasn’t even milk in it. 

“Oh-“

“So badly,” she cut him off, because she actually couldn’t bare to have a conversation right now. “It hurts, so fucking bad,” she said again, staring him down just to watch for any signs of shock in his expression. 

“Bad leg?” He asked, remaining patient. 

She sighed, finally getting to making his coffee. “Yes and it hurts,” she answered. Usually she’d throw in a laugh or a joke but it wasn’t funny, she wanted help. “It hurts really badly,” she repeated herself, putting his cup under the machine. 

“Oh, I’m sorry, Em. It’s nearly break time though!” He reminded her. 

She winced. No, there was nothing Paul could do either when she thought of it. It’s not like he could magically whisk her out of here to a hospital that would knock her into an induced coma for a couple of hours. So there was no more point complaining. “Yeah, right?” She said instead with half a chuckle that came out automatically as the other tried to calculate a better way to get her lunch. She didn’t think she had the walk in her.

“I’m really sorry about your leg,” he said again. “Is there anything I can do to help, babe?” 

Emma shook her head. “I just really want work to be over soon,” she didn’t whine, but a small noise escaped her mouth as she handed his finished coffee back, picking up one of his big hands in hers to hold it there for her forehead to rest up against for two seconds. 

“Oh, hun,” his thumb brushed across her forehead and again the urge to cry pricked at the back of her eyes. She distanced herself quickly, just sort of stretching her neck for their goodbye kiss today. 

Paul chuckled, kissing her forehead since he couldn’t make it to her lips on her own. “I’ll be counting down for you. Take some pain killers.”

“But they won’t do the job,” she groused. “It’ll like. Distract me at the most,” she pointed out, not caring for a half assed job. 

“But it’s something right?”

She nodded again, offering him a smile to say she’d take his words into consideration at least.

“Emma, I love you,” he said, pausing at the counter with his coffee in hand, bumping his hand up against his knuckles but not hard enough to spill his drink, resigned. 

“I know, baby, I love you too,” she shrugged, tapping her fists on the table. “What’s up?” 

“I’m sorry, about your leg you know. That it won’t get better very fast.”

She snorted and rolled her eyes. “I don’t have the patience for your sappiness” she joked, scuffing his arm with her knuckles in a playful punch that lacked any force behind its swing. “But I appreciate it, man.” Then she laughed. “Now go make use of your functioning legs and walk your ass back to work, Paul.”

He grinned, giving her a thumbs up which she returned with an outstretched arm before he finally left.

She decided to skip her lunch by the time her break finally rolled around, taking to just laying in her own sweat on the break room couch instead.

If she lay at a very specific angle on her hip, the pain dulled very slightly. 

“Emma?” Nora called her name quietly.

“What?” Emma groaned. Frustrated she would have to collect herself for a conversation. She sat back up, trying to smooth out the stray strands of hair that had come out of her bun due to her anxious twitches throughout the day.

“Are you alright?” Nora inquired. “Zoey said your leg’s having a bad day.” 

She nodded. She knew right now she was a pretty hot mess, but her leg was not giving her a chance to forget how fucked up it was and so words for a conversation were the last thing on her mind. 

“I’m sorry. Do you need me to handle the last half of your shift?” She offered, biting down on her lip as she brushed a curl of hair back into her cap. 

Emma shook her head despite the fact she probably did indeed need Nora to handle it. But she knew it would happen again in a week, and then again a week after that, and if she didn’t show up to work that was a lot of money down the drain. Plus - she felt it was a bit rude for Nora to assume she wasn’t capable when she had already been at it since six AM, and that she had done this almost once a week for about a year and a half now. Maybe that was just her being stubborn.

“I brought you some pastries from the cabinet,” Nora tried again. 

It was more a gesture to say she was there than it was an attempt to help because unfortunately they were equally aware the pastries were too dry to eat. 

“Thanks,” Emma held out her hand to accept the bag, and Nora lingered in the break room for a few seconds longer before sighing out loud and hurrying off to go handle something else.

Emma’s head sunk into her hands, taking in a deep breath as she eased herself to her feet, mentally preparing herself to get back to work.

The day went so slow she could feel herself physically pushing up against the flow of time, and it did not want to move.

She was counting back the time. 

Three hours and fifty seven minutes, three hours and fifty two minutes, three hours and fifty one minutes -surely not, how had only one minute passed? 

“You look like you’re going crazy,” Zoey leant over the counter, her wavy hair blocking off the time stamp clock on the cash register. “Maybe stop looking at the clock and find something to keep yourself busy with?” She suggested instead. “It’s like, personally when I’m waiting for a cast list to drop I feel like I’m just gonna snap,” there was a theatrical quiver to her voice that suggested she could’ve been exaggerating but funnily enough they seemed to be on the same wavelength. 

She nodded, covering her eyes to physically tear her gaze away from the clock. “I’m gonna go restock the shelves,” she announced, and Zoey nodded to confirm she could do so. 

She collected a box of stock from the back room, things like coffee beans and syrups patrons could buy if they really liked them (not that anyone was ever that big of a fanatic) but they weren’t shelf pushers. They barely needed restocking only a bit of tidying which at least allowed Emma to sit on the ground without a second look. 

“It’s almost the end of your shift, anyways,” Zoey would reminder her frequently as she dug up tasks for Emma to do. 

Usually it was a bit of task delegation Emma believed, but today she was a bit happy for an excuse to double check the tax reports or take out the bins, not that they ever made her leg stop hurting. 

“Almost there,” Zoey told her as she passed by to the back room once more. 

Twenty minutes of standing up and then she would have to haul in the outside tables and stack all the inside chairs, mop the floors and clean the machines. Hell. She could probably actually be here for another hour she realised all of a sudden in a panic, freezing in place and hoping time would just sweep her away. 

“Emma, what’re you doing?” Nora was at the counter now.

“I don’t feel too well,” she admitted, holding a hand to her heart so she could keep her cool. “God. Wow, it’s like really hot in here today,” she tried to shrug it off, turning back around to the display shelf she had stocked earlier to pretend to fiddle with it a moment longer to pretend she was working. 

“It’s pretty quiet now, Emma,” Nora commented, glancing around the empty cafe. No one had been in for about ten minutes and it was driving Emma mad. She needed something to distract herself. “Is Paul picking you up after work?”

“Oh, nah, not on Wednesdays,” she shook her head a little too tensely. “Not today.” 

“Well uh...” Nora was silent and Emma hardly noticed, she was actually relieved that it was one less thing to worry about as she tried gently to stretch her bad leg out, smoothing a hand down the side of her thigh to try and push away the pain. “The sun is going to set soon and I wouldn’t want you walking home in the dark.”

“Oh, well,” she turned around with an exhausted half-smile. “Maybe I’ll call him. I dunno.” There wasn’t much she could do and it wasn’t fun having it drilled into her head that her day was not yet nearing any sort of end. 

“Look, I think Zo and I can handle closing on our own. It hasn’t been a busy day,” Nora was leaning across the counter, she had been taking down stock notes on a pad of paper but now she was just fiddling with the pen. “There’s nothing you can do about your leg?” She tilted her head. “No painkillers or...?”

“No painkillers unless you want me stoned out of my mind at work,” she joked, she had tried some of the heavier stuff once or twice but they made her brain far too slow for taking orders. 

“Well, maybe you can work out the back,” Nora played along, tapping a hand to the table before stretching back up. “Go on. Toss me your apron and you’re good to go.” 

“Oh,” the relief that came over her was more like a cool sweat. Relief didn’t fix things, it just tended to make it a little more tolerable. 

She balled up her apron and tossed it to the counter in exchange for her messenger bag which Nora was kind enough to deliver straight to her so she didn’t break anything in it. 

“If anything happens to you on your way home just call the shop okay?” Nora added with a touch of concern in her tone as she watched Emma finally escape that place. 

She had never been so relieved to just collapse right onto the couch, staring up at the ceiling in utter exhaustion as her brain dared to look back on the start of the day. She could barely recall waking up this morning, but she had finally kicked this day’s ass. For the most part, at least.

Even laying down the pain was still there, still flaring from the hours she had spent standing about on it and walking and carrying boxes. 

But at least time was moving again.

———————————————————

Paul watched as Emma picked at the dinner he had made for her, hesitating between each bite and staring dully at the table, her breath quiet but laboured.

She had been quiet which was no surprise. She was probably exhausted after a day like that.

“It still hurts I guess?” He questioned when dinner hadn’t even seemed to energise her up.

She nodded. “Yes it still hurts!” She exclaimed with surprise, glaring up at him like the words had been sitting in her mouth all night long. “It still hurts, and it always will, and it’s just gonna happen to me all the time!” She snapped, pounding one small fist against the dinner table.

Paul blinked as he collected her plate to take it to the sink. “Yeah, nerve pain takes a while to fix up, right? Have you considered going back to the physical therapist at all? It sounds like it just hurts too much.” He tried to choose his words carefully. 

She brushed her fist of off the outburst, letting it rest on her lap as her other leg hung limply off the side of the chair in an effort to pretend it didn’t exist. “Maybe, yeah. I dunno. It seems like a hassle.”

“But have you considered it might go away if you do?” He countered bluntly yet hopefully. “They might have some great mystery cure.”

“Yeah, for girls who’ve fallen out of helicopters and fucked the shit out of their leg,” she snorted. “Would love to see that.”

“Oh,” he sighed, standing over her where she still sat. “I know it hurts, but you don’t have to be dry when I’m trying to help.”

“Sorry,” she apologised quickly, head down. “But like. It’s just gonna be there forever and saying ‘exercise’ or ‘take meds’ are such bandaid solutions,” she confessed. “Some girl told me to try yoga once,” she scoffed in amusement. “I’m just done with people thinking they’ve thought of ideas I haven’t, I don’t want advice or pity, sometimes I just want to complain,” she groaned. “I do appreciate it, really, I just-...” she trailed off and glanced back down to the table. “Thanks for dinner tonight, Paul. It’s my favourite.” 

“Yeah, I know, chicken pepian,” he said, his fingers brushing the table top in an effort not to lose track of his thought. “Uh. I get that. The whole aching thing. Not the pain thing of course! Not the- the aching, no!” He corrected himself. “The fact it won’t go away, I mean. There’s not a cure for everything. Sometimes just time. And sometimes just appreciating the times when things don’t suck, or the in between moments have to get you by.”

“It’s just, every time it hurts I can see the crash in my head,” a laugh tumbled out of her mouth. It had been so quiet that Paul wasn’t quite sure he had heard her right. “Hah, I’m just like, I’m so over it all. Sorry for being a dickhead, sometimes my temper gets short.”

“Well I cant blame you for it,” he rubbed a hand over her shoulder and she leant her head up against his hip. “I don’t have chronic pain. I really don’t know what I can recommend to help though.”

She nodded her head up and down in twitching movements. “Yeah baby,” she collected his other hand to hold it to her cheek. “I don’t expect you to help, that’s not what I need. I just, I speak out loud sometimes. It’s the only thing that stops thoughts just ricocheting around my skull,” she managed to chuckle right into his hand, and he could feel her warm breath on his palm. 

“Well I’m here to listen, then,” he offered, clearing his throat so his voice was loud enough to reach her in her stupor.

“Yeah, bud,” she nudged him, bouncing her good foot on the floor. “You’ve got the spirit. Just cowboy up and deal with it is my motto.” 

“Well,” he rolled up his sleeves. “You can’t always be a strong cowboy,” with a single heave he lifted her out of her chair, holding her long enough to get her into a bridal carry with a little bit of struggling he at least managed to cover. “Sometimes it’s just enough to be an alive cowboy,” he joked. “Who said that?”

“I just saw it online once,” she said, leaning into his chest. She could hear how slow his heartbeat was, and tucked one hand up to her own heart to feel how badly it had been racing all day. 

“I can’t do much I guess then,” he clicked his tongue with an unfortunate shrug. “But if you ever want to just cut the leg off I’ll cauterise the wound,” he laughed anxiously, not sure if the joke would land. 

She chuckled, thwacking a hand to his chest. “You’ll be the first person I call, Paul. Thanks.” This time, the smile, albeit weak, rested on her face. 

He jostled her slightly in her arms so he was holding her right, tipping her head up for a quick kiss. He didn’t really want to steal her breath away when she was already a little laboured. 

“Come on. I’ll at least carry you to bed,” he offered as he began to walk, keeping her as comfortable as he could without hurting her bad leg too much. “It sounds like that’s the least I can do.”

“Mmm,” she purred. “And that’ll do just fine.”

He couldn’t fix it, it at least he could be there for her.


End file.
